OCTOBER 10TH, 1897

OCTOBER 10TH, 1897

I much doubt if it was in the mind of the Lord when here to assert His deity. I judge that He ever held to the place which as man He had taken. But He was here in the testimony and in this sense the truth of who He was could not be hid. In John 5 the Lord lays out the whole position as regards the Father ^[p. 140] and Himself, and hence there was a full revelation of what was in God towards man. The Father showed the Son (for testimony) all things that He Himself did, and the Son could do nothing but what He saw the Father doing. Still the Lord spoke as from His place as a man here, though evidently divine. To do His own will as an independent Being was a moral impossibility, for the Father and the Son were one in the unity of one Spirit. Passing out of death into life, passing is, I judge, into a sense, so far as the creature can, of that love with which the Son is loved; John 17:26. The Father’s name is declared to this end. As regards Romans 1, I fancy the expression “by the resurrection from the dead” is abstract, but at the same time in contrast with “of the seed of David”. It certainly gives the idea of an order, but I do not know that it is necessary for the mind to go beyond the resurrection of Christ Himself. He appealed to His resurrection as being the sign (John 2:19) and could not be holden of death. I am still inclined to think that it is by the word of the Son that a man is raised to life, and that word is the revelation of the Father which becomes operative in the soul. I think that John 5 makes this clear. The difficulty with many is to get away from material thoughts.